CAMARILLO : Soccer Players Kick It With Surrey Mates

Danny Matthews isn’t all that fond of California sod.

“It’s softer in England,” Danny said. “It rains there, and that makes it soggy.”

The 12-year-old resident of Surrey, England, knows of what he speaks.

Danny is one of 16 soccer players, ages 9 to 13, who traveled from Surrey to Ventura County to participate in an exchange program with the Camarillo chapter of the American Youth Soccer Organization. The British group arrived last Tuesday and is scheduled to stay through June 8.

This is the 15th year of the program, in which players from the two continents alternate hosting the other group for two weeks. When they are off the soccer field, the youths are shown various hot spots. Surrey players have visited the Ventura Harbor, Disneyland and the Price Club in Oxnard.

Though Danny may have a tough time adjusting to the American playing surface, his host, 12-year-old Bryan Monka, had his own problems with the British playing style when he traveled to England last year.

“They play in the rain all the time, and we usually don’t,” said Bryan. “And they’re a lot rougher. They use elbows a little more.”

Bryan admitted he rather liked the rougher play and tried to incorporate it into his game when he returned home.

“But once they called a couple of fouls on me,” he said, “I got better.”

The British team took on a group of 14- and 15-year-old Camarillo players this week. On Thursday, they will play the host Camarillo team at Valle Lindo Park in Camarillo at 4 p.m.

John Kasey, one of four coaches traveling with the Surrey team, said teamwork is emphasized in England.

But Larry Hawley, an American host for three years, said the British players have more finesse, but the local boys outrun and out-muscle them.

As far as Bryan Monka’s mother, Becky, is concerned, the playing styles don’t much matter.

“My main focus is that through something as simple and casual as soccer,” she said, “you can establish long-term relationships.”